A hundred years passed.
Not on Earth alone… but within a cocoon pulsing between two worlds.
A hundred years that were no slumber—but a reforging, a slow rebirth for a dragon not yet complete.
In the earliest days,
the earth around it throbbed with silent dread,
as if aware that something unhuman had begun to take shape in its depths.
And at its center—
Velgrynd,
her feet planted in the ashes of time,
guarding it with a fiery silence that would not melt.
Akira's body did not remain as it was.
Instead, it was embraced by a crystalline cocoon,
like a dragon's egg—
translucent at times, radiant at others,
growing slowly, breathing,
releasing threads of raw energy that split the air around it,
as if declaring to the world:
Something beyond its comprehension is being born here.
With each passing season,
the cocoon changed.
In spring,
strange flowers bloomed around it—
their petals glowing a somber violet,
bowing toward the cocoon as if in worship,
offering nectar to its crystalline shell
in a silent rite of devotion.
In summer,
the air burned without fire.
A cryptic heat radiated from within,
splitting the rocks around it,
forcing Velgrynd to spread her crimson wings
like a shield against the very glare of creation.
In autumn,
leaves circled it in a slow storm,
falling but never touching it,
vanishing before they reached the ground—
as if the cocoon consumed them,
as if it fed a fetus that dined on time itself.
As for winter…
It was no winter as mortals knew it.
Snow refused to fall on this land.
Ice vaporized before touching its perimeter.
This was a place forbidden to death,
fortified by the breath of a dragon guarding what was yet unborn.
Through it all…
Velgrynd did not leave.
She shed no tear,
but her eyes remained fixed on the cocoon's heart—
watching every shift,
every pulse of energy,
every tremor within that crystalline shell.
And in those moments when Akira's energy brushed against hers,
everything began to change.
Memories flowed between them—not as words, but as a sensation seeping into their very flesh.
As Velgrynd felt Akira's spirit wander through time, she saw fragments of his past: shattered images, tangled emotions—
moments of weakness, flashes of strength, eras of isolation, a struggle with no end in sight.
Yet these were not mere visions.
It was as if she lived them herself.
Every feeling, every experience, surged through her body as if it were her own.
Their souls tangled; their memories became shared.
And Akira—he felt the same.
Velgrynd's trials, the pain she endured, her long silence…
all of it seeped into his spirit, invading his memory.
But it did not end there.
Every thought, every scene they witnessed, carried a strange energy that intertwined between them—
as if something new were being born within the memories themselves.
Time burned between them, igniting with inextinguishable fire.
Each memory became part of a new transformation, binding their souls tighter than ever before.
Akira felt Velgrynd's presence in every cell of his body—
more intensely than ever.
It was as if she drifted inside him, observing his metamorphosis, sensing every change with terrifying intimacy.
She had become part of his memories, just as he had become part of hers.
Then…
on the final day of the century,
a faint crack split the cocoon's shell.
Not a fracture—
but a first breath.
The world inhaled.
Time paused.
And Velgrynd smiled—
the smile of one who never despaired,
who waited a hundred years to witness this birth.
The Apocalypse Dragon… awakens.
Inside…
Darkness was the first thing he sensed.
But not pure darkness—
the kind thick with a living pulse,
like a womb still sculpting the body it would birth.
Akira… was not asleep.
He was trapped.
Encased in a shell unbreakable from without, unopenable from within—
suspended between the beats of a heart he did not control
and a faint voice
whispering in his depths:
"Continue. Your time has not yet come."
A voice not of his system,
nor of his memories.
It was deeper… older…
as if his soul spoke to itself across time.
And within this cosmic torrent of energy,
something else stirred.
Velgrynd, watching from the skies,
felt another presence in these waves.
Her energy intertwined with Akira's in an unprecedented way.
This was no mere exchange between two beings—
it was the collision of two primordial forces at the heart of chaos.
At intervals,
he felt something spill over him—
a fiery warmth,
like a touch,
like an eternal embrace he never asked for but now relied upon.
Velgrynd.
Her presence surrounded him… unseen.
A flame encircling the cocoon—
warding off death,
nourishing his spirit,
whispering through every cell of his new body:
"I am here."
Then, the change began.
The first spark—
like a star igniting in his chest.
"The blood… is not as it was…"
He thought it, but without words.
He felt it thicken—
transform—
glowing a deep crimson
veined with black…
and gold…
and strands unnamed.
His fangs… lengthened slowly.
His bones… reshaped themselves.
His soul… burned quietly,
scouring away the last of his humanity,
weaving a new essence in its place—
the essence of a dragon.
[ Ding! Host's evolution is nearing completion. ]
[ Prepare for awakening. ]
But there was no "preparation."
This was happening to him—
not by his hand, nor his will.
As if a fate greater than himself demanded his rebirth.
Then—
Rooar*
Not from his mouth…
but from his very being.
A voiceless, shapeless cry—
yet it pierced the layers of energy around him,
reaching Velgrynd,
reaching the sky,
reaching the forest's deepest roots where life had grown around the cocoon.
It woke the birds… and silenced the gods.
[ Notification: The Fifth True Dragon has been born. ]
[ The birth of the Fifth True Dragon, the Apocalypse Dragon, has been confirmed. ]
Wings…
still formless,
yet their shadow stretched inside the cocoon—
as if the universe strained to contain the span of a creature not yet fully born.
And that moment…
was the beginning.
...
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